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The Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever

Tuesday 28 August 2018

This is Part 2 of our series on songs that namecheck British places! We're here to give you a bit of background on them. As evocative as each of the songs are to listen to, nothing beats visiting the places that inspired them for yourself. Be sure to go and check them out.

Strawberry Field(s) Forever

The Beatles: four men from Liverpool who changed the way we make and listen to music, forever.

Liverpool is a city with a fascinating heritage (did you know that the USA’s first overseas consulate was founded here in 1790?). The city where the band grew up provided the inspiration for a number of The Beatles' hits including 'Penny Lane' and the ground-breaking psychedelic classic ‘Strawberry Fields Forever.’

The real name for the place that inspired John Lennon’s song comes without an ‘s’. Strawberry Field was a Salvation Army children’s home near John’s home where he'd play as a child. Made famous by the song, it’s regularly visited as a site of pilgrimage by the thousands of Beatles fans who come to Liverpool each year.

A global phenomenon, The Beatles’ music has been pored over by armies of fans in search of hidden meanings and there exists an enormous amount of trivia attached to every track. In the case of 'Strawberry Fields Forever', it has been claimed that the song is the first ever pop song to use a ‘fake ending’, fading out before fading back up (listen out at 03.37. It must've driven the DJs mad). Aficionados also claim that the series of beeps after Lennon singing “Let me take you down ‘cause I’m going to”, are in fact Morse Code spelling out the letters J and L.

The Beatles Story gives a colourful and fascinating history of the band set on the waterfront at the Albert Docks, a UNESCO Designated World Heritage Site complete with TATE Liverpool and fashionable bars and restaurants. Now see Part 3!